(1) Field of the Invention
This application is directed to the field of eyewear accessories. More specifically, it pertains to decorative enhancements of eyewear frames which are removable and conveniently interchangeable. The decorations are preferably attached to the temples of the eyewear frames, but may be similarly attached in other eyewear frame locations, depending upon the eyewear frame design.
(2) Description of Related Art
Others have attempted to incorporate decorative features in eyewear design. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,635 utilizes a quick-release spring-biased clamp to attach jewelry to the temples of eyewear. Whereas this attaching method is useful for hanging decorations, this attachment feature does not provide suitable rigidity to properly orient the type of decorations that are suitable for small ornamental designs that are favored for eyewear, such as small 2D or 3D objects such as pop art and similar items. The clamping spring would be visibly exposed when used to clamp a small decorative item, making it very unsuitable and undesirable for the wearer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,198 utilizes decorative eyewear pieces that are attached to the eyewear utilizing pins. The decorations require the eyewear stems are designed to receive the pins, and the decorations can therefore only be attached at particular locations. This highly limits the desirability and practical use of these kinds of decorations.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,787 utilizes a retainer to grip the temples of eyewear with an attached strap. The overall design is unsatisfactory for a decorative design as it will not maintain proper orientation due to motion of the attaching strap. The attaching design does not have enough flexibility to accommodate all of the potential temple designs and rigidly maintain decorative orientation. Also, the attaching means is large when compared to the size of smaller decorations and would be exposed to view making it unsuitable and undesirable to a wearer.
It is desirable in the art to miniaturize the means of attaching eyewear decorative features so that only the decorative feature is visible. It is important from an aesthetic viewpoint that only the decoration is visible, the decoration maintains proper orientation, and the decoration does not slide horizontally on the eyewear temple in normal use. Also, it is important that the decoration can be removed quickly and interchanged with another decoration based on the desires of the wearer. Finally, ease of removal and putting in place are important features to include in a design.